what I left behind
by Spontaneous Muse
Summary: FMA AU. Soul was due back to Maka Albarn's Automail because he had busted up his arm. Again. In which Soul and Maka are childhood-friends-turned-kishin-hunter-and-automail-worker respectively; Tsubaki had observed them both and decided to play love doctor. SoMa. Oneshot.


_This was written from a prompt off of Tumblr. Someone also bounced the idea of an FMA crossover and they gave me permission to use their idea to fulfill this fic. _

_So this is a Soul Eater / Full Metal Alchemist cross over! I really enjoyed writing this one and I may consider expanding on this universe and storyline into more oneshots or even a multichapter prequel of sorts._

_Anyways let me know what you think!_

_- muse._

_x- cover art by Karachips over on tumblr. Check her out and give her a follow!_

_xx - changed the title of the fic, it's been bothering me. Title inspired by the song **Delirium** by metal band Epica.**  
**_

.::[::]::.

**w**hat I left behind

"Ouch!" He hissed, and if it weren't for her firm grip on his shoulder, he probably would've jumped, probably would've ruined all of her hard work, probably would've made the poor blonde stab herself in the eye with her weapon of choice – a wrench – and then have to stammer apologies all over again. Luckily her grip was on point, her steady hand unmoving as he winced away from her but otherwise there was virtually no harm done.

"Sorry," Maka apologized, her voice seemingly far-off as she concentrated on her craft. "Tell me if it's uncomfortable _before_ I start shoving pieces of metal into you."

His arm still stung but the blonde had begun to loosen _whatever_ she stuck in his arm that caused him so much pain. "That's not anything new," he responded curtly as she continued the usual checkup. There were a few more turns, a few more moments that he chanced to look at her. Her sparkling green eyes were narrowed, focused, as she fiddled around before she set down her wrench and clapped her hands together.

"Well, I've determined that this isn't going to cut it anymore," she informed him. For a moment, he was surprised: sure he had noticed his arm had stiffened up and sometimes caught, but he hadn't replaced the limb, irony intended, since Maka deemed him able to use automail without seriously harming himself. She seemed to sense his discomfort, for she placed a calming hand on his shoulder. "I can get you some anesthetic if you'd like?"

"I can take it," he brushed off nonchalantly, though he didn't miss the flash if annoyance in her eyes nor the way her lips slid unconsciously into a (cute) pout as she rolled her eyes and began to work.

Aside from the occasional screeches of her pushing back her chair to grab another tool, and the metallic keening as she undid the bindings to his arms, the silence was almost deafening in contrast. The last time he had come back for a tune up was almost a year ago, when he had a particularly rough encounter in the sands of Nevada that forced him to take a train back to his quaint hometown.

When he returned, the first reaction she had was to throw him a hug. When they were younger he'd tease how she was underdeveloped - but this time he could definitely tell that that was no longer the case. And as they remained that way for a few fleeting moments, did she suddenly realize exactly why he had returned for a visit, grab the nearest book from within her arms reach and smack him with it. "How could you get SAND in it," she had complained, her voice still whiney and almost high pitched as he tried to explain that it was unavoidable. Either way she had dragged him into the back and proceeded to lecture him about taking care of his arm, to which he sighed and let her work her magic.

This time around, it didn't proceed in the same way. When their eyes had met she still threw herself into his arms, but they definitely clung on a few beats longer than neccessary before she poured him a cup of tea. And even now, her eyes were screwed up in concentration as she eased his automail arm from its socket.

"So, anything new," Soul tried, if anything to perhaps calm his quickly accelerating heart She flashed him a look and hummed tunelessly, seemingly ignoring him as she reached back and grabbed a new tool.

"Not really, it's been pretty slow around here, though I can't say the same for you?"

"Not exactly," he responded, the stump of his arm beginning to feel sore as the relentless grip on the stumps of his arm lessening. He had grown used to the omnipresent clench, so as soon as it was loosened, he almost felt strangely buoyant - his arm anyway. She made another noise of acknowledgement, her chair squeaking once more as she repositioned herself.

He glanced over, but then quickly looked away as he realized her position. When she was upright he didn't bat an eye on her loose-fitting shirt, but now that she was bent over at such a severe angle did he blush and suddenly turn selfconscious. He swallowed and looked away, the mechanical scrapes of metal against metal filling their silence as he tried to calm his heart. "No new boys?"

Maka paused at his elbow joint, before she let out a hollow laugh. "Hah, _new_."

"Didn't think so, not with your tiny tits." He braced himself, awaiting the next level Maka-chop that would come from her wrench, but he had tensed for nothing as she worked away, instead clicking her tongue impatiently. _Jeez_, he thought, _she had always been a bookworm but I never thought she would ever be this dedicated to anything other than her studies_.

As if she could read his mind, she paused and looked up, her eyes capturing his, his heart pounding as he watched the emerald orbs dance the dance that had him snagged since their childhood. "I am _so _getting you that, but when I'm not in danger of breaking you."

Soul found it in himself to feel a bit of gratitude at her words as she worked away. He kept an idle conversation, and though Maka responded diligently he could tell she was concentrating so he didn't push too many questions. Finally when the arm came away and fell neatly in her hands did he sigh and roll the stump back. He studied said stump, his flesh was red and raw from the continuous clench of the metal. Maka frowned as her vision followed his. "That doesn't look so good. I've got some cream in the back."

"Right," Soul said, getting up and rolling on the balls of his feet He turned to the blonde as she carefully moved what was recently his replacement arm off to the side.

"It will take me about a day to finish this new arm I have for you, so you just take it easy - if you need anything, you know you can call Tsubaki for you."

"Yes yes, I've been here before, no need to treat me like I'm a stranger," he joked. When he leaned in to grab his coat, he paused when he noticed a flash of emotion in her eyes. It seemed sad, almost melancholy. He was about to question her about it before she pulled the wrench and swiftly chopped his head with it. "_Ow_! What the hell?"

"For the tiny tits comment," she responded quietly. She stowed the tool away in a flash. "I'll have this arm ready for you soon, so why don't you go get something to eat?" Her eyes narrowed. "And that cream."

"Alright." He said as he ducked his head out and trudged downstairs. Maka's raven-haired assistant was already there, the cream set aside in a jar and another cup of steaming tea awaiting him.

He sat down and gingerly dipped his fingers in the green substance (he never understood Japanese herbal medicines, but they worked so he couldn't complain) and smeared the rather goopy consistency over the stump that was his left arm. Instantly, it felt as less sore and the redness was already beginning to fade. He took a sip of tea (green, as well,) as Tsubaki smiled and sat opposite of him.

"We haven't seen you in a long time, Soul," she said meekly. He shrugged as he put down the cup, having chugged the tea on second thought.

"'Been busy. But the arm's really busted up now. Besides, Maka always told me to drop by since last year because she expected as much."

"Yes, she's been studying automail extensively, you know?" Tsubaki giggled, her fair complexion turning rose for a moment. "Actually, she's been anticipating your arrival for a few days now."

Unsurprising, as back when Soul and Maka were kids, they were inseparable. But after the accident did the dynamic shift between them: it became less of a friendship and more of a commitment to each other. She had promised to help in in any way she could. It meant she knew him like the back of her hand – she knew that, after the whole sand incident, his arm would definitely be needing a changing.

And it was almost ten years since then, both nearing their twenties now.

"Yeah?" Soul said lazily, leaning back on his chair and rolling the stump of an arm once more. "That's cool, I guess it has been little over a year since I've been here last."

"Yeah," Tsubaki replied, her black eyes misting over as she began to reminisce. "As soon as she saw the state of your arm from the last time, she tutted and buried herself in her room."

"Really?"

"I think I caught her sketching designs for a new arm," Tsubaki elaborated. He didn't miss the hint of a sly tone in her voice, nor the way her eyebrows raised suggestively as if he was supposed to react to the tone. The Japanese native leaned back and smiled as well, taking her own cup of green tea and taking a generous sip. "She told me that she wanted to make a really good arm for you, and that she'd want to take a head start before you got here. In fact, she was more worried about you coming earlier, thinking she might delay you."

He couldn't help but to smile at the thought. Maka, she was always sometimes a little overbearing but she always meant the best. Even as she ushered him out, there was something distinctly maternal about it.

Sudden frustration spiked his spine. But he wanted it to be more than that. He'd wanted it to be more than that for as long as he could remember. But she was Maka; Maka who always put work first before anything else, and truthfully, he was the same way, or else he would've been by her side already, day in day out, instead of fighting Kishin with one mechanical arm.

He sighed as Tsubaki pushed the cream back towards him, which he gratefully accepted and dabbed more of it onto his sore stub. "She's so silly."

It was then the woman leaned in, her normally relaxed eyes suddenly serious. Though he'd seen Maka wear that look before (perhaps it's where she got it from), he sat up quickly. "You know," Tsubaki began, her voice steady and slow, "Maka's dedicated a lot of her life to you."

He blinked.

She sighed, leaning back again. "I mean when you lost your arm to the Kishin, she began to pick up automail." He opened his mouth to interrupt because _he _certainly didn't see that – she had told him she picked it up as a hobby. "No of course she didn't tell you, she didn't want you to know. She began to learn how to maintain you on her own, insisting only _she _could handle you and make sure you were okay."

Fond memories of his childhood flashed before his eyes, and whilst they were both always headstrong Maka would always somehow end up protecting him, even as he pushed her outstretched arm aside and insisted he didn't _need_ protecting; it was uncool for girls to protect guys like him. Even though he might've outwardly denied her help, she always ended up being there for him, like when his parents scolded him for not being able to play piano the way _they_ wanted to.

Like when he lost his arm.

Realization dawned and Tsubaki blew a breath through tight lips. "She practically threw away her future for you, you know? She could've left this small town and gone to bigger, better places, but she wanted to be close to you. Then you decided you wanted to enlist in that program to kill Kishin, so in the end, _you left her behind_." Her voice was still uncharacteristically serious, if not disapproving, but Soul understood because Tsubaki had grown up with the pair. Whilst she wasn't as close to Soul as she was to Maka, he understood that she knew the blonde as well as he did. _Maybe even better_, he thought bitterly, due to his extended absences when he left for missions.

"And you rarely drop by, never for just a leisure visit too," Tsubaki concluded sadly. As if the sudden burst of emotion had somehow worn her out, she caught Soul's eye and held it there. "I just think she's a little lonely. When she knows you're coming she gets all excited again; when she knows you need replacements she throws herself right into her work. You should thank her, she really _is_ an amazing girl."

Maka, the girl who he had always teased for blowing off hanging out because she was studying.

Maka, the girl who's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm when he played a couple notes on a keyboard, a stupid grin spreading on her face when he kept playing augmented fourths but the meaning of the music lost to her untrained ears.

Maka, the girl who came to his house early in the morning bawling because her mother had split, leaving her behind.

Maka, the girl who comforted him and shushed him as he cried with pain trying to cauterize his arm after the Kishin had made off with it, when she was ready to fend off the Kishin for him before he made his life changing decision.

Maka, the girl who always welcomed him home with a bit of a tear in her eye as she would throw herself into his arms, but the moment never lasting long enough as she would inspect the arm and either tut or smack him depending on how badly he managed to screw it up.

Maka, the girl who was upstairs and slaving away at the arm that, as to he was recently informed, she had been working on for the past two days with no sleep just to make sure it was state-of-the-line and nothing less than perfect for him to use in his fight against kishin.

He hastily pushed himself away from the table, thanking Tsubaki as he whisked away. He missed the knowing smile that spread on her lips as he ran up the stairs, two by two. He was _this _close to kicking open the door to her workshop, but he hesitated when he inspected the crack between the door and doorway. Her blonde hair pulled into the two pigtails of his childhood, he only saw her back as she hunched rather severely over her workbench. Soft EDM and trance pulsed from her workstation, something he was used to criticizing, but instead he decided to leave the argument as her foot jiggled to the beat but her arms indicated fierce concentration.

He closed the door for her.

He'd see her in the morning, anyways.

* * *

"Does that hurt?" She asked, her voice all business as she tightened the new screw holding the arm in place.

"No," he responded. He winced as she gave a sharp jab to the new arm she had fastened in place, but his response seemed satisfactory as she pulled out another wrench and began to fasten the other part of his new limb.

"Good," she said conversationally. "I used a different metal – it's steel, so it's a better than the iron one I made such a long time ago." He nodded again, biting his lip as one of the screws hurt his arm in a strange way he wasn't used to. She seemed to pick up on that too. "Sorry, it's going to be sore, but it'll give you better motor control."

"I'll get used to it," he said through gritted teeth. She beamed at him (his heart thudded once again) as she worked away. It didn't take as long to reattach the new arm as it did to take off the old one, and soon she was giving him a good pat on the back to get him up.

Just as he began to roll onto the pads of his feet again, did he see a flash of metal. With lightning reflexes, he blocked the hit, loud keening of metal on metal resonating through the room. Maka beamed again and lowered the wrench that almost impaled him through the brain. "Perfect, looks like it's smoother than before."

Soul lowered his new arm, mortified. "Holy shit Maka, what if you _mushed_ my brains?"

"Nah, you're too hardheaded for me to do any permanent damage," she said in a singsong voice as she whipped the towel she had around her neck across the room. "Tsubaki has your things, I'll see you out."

They walked to the first floor in silence, questions flooding Soul's mind but he bit his tongue to stop them from spilling forth. He began his usual goodbyes and half-assed promises to keep them updated on the arm status.

As he turned to leave, he couldn't help but to turn around once more. "Hey, Maka?"

The blonde turned around. Ruby on emerald collided and Soul swore he could almost feel sparks at his spine. God, she was so beautiful, and so _smart_. He had to make sure. He had to make sure he didn't rob her of a life she deserved: one of grandeur, where she could be the scholar like her brain was wired for. Where she could have a boyfriend and husband who didn't fight kishin for a living. A boyfriend or husband who still had both of his arms because he wasn't a stupid impulsive kid.

"Yeah?"

"Are you happy?"

She paused. Then her eyes filled with understanding and she started to giggle. He stood dumbfounded and she was all but guffawing; even Tsubaki looked confused as she choked back her laughs. "Aw man," she said, wiping a tear from her eye. "Yes, I'm happy Soul.

Before you start on your bullshit-" she said, interrupting him mid-sentence, "that I deserve _better_, I chose this life. Yes, I might've chosen it originally because of you, but I am genuinely interested in automail.

Stop feeling so sorry for yourself," she joked, but her next words were interrupted by his gigantic bear hug. He could feel her stiffen for a moment before her own arms wrapped around his – they were light, dainty, but unfairly toughened from the automail business.

But as long as she was here, he wouldn't ever lose her. Because she was here, he could still see her regularly. "I'll call more often," he whispered into her ear.

"You said that last time."

"And I'll visit you more."

"_Also_ said that last time."

"I mean it this time," he said seriously, pulling back and staring deeply in her eyes. He could sense her bubble of sarcasm die before her as she seemed to grasp the meaning of his words.

"You promise?" Maka mumbled quietly.

He gave her a swift kiss on the cheek. "Maybe I'll break this arm on purpose to come back faster."

Maka Albarn had amazing craftsmanship, because with his new steel limb, he was able to block yet _another_ Maka Chop (this time with her classic book) that was somehow even more scary when she was both flustered and annoyed.

_She is all mine. _


End file.
